Japan's industry minister calls for quick phase-out of nuclear energy: report

Japan's industry minister said the country needed to give up nuclear power, as soon as possible as nuclear plants posed too high a risk in one of the world's most earthquake-prone countries, reports said today.

According to Yukio Edano, the meltdowns last year after a tsunami hit the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant showed that the cost of nuclear power was too high, the AP report said quoting from a new book of policy views that appeared in bookstores today.

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He said he had come to the conclusion after seeing ''what was believed to be masterpiece of modern technology succumb to natural disaster so easily.'' Edano had served as top government spokesman during the height of the nuclear crisis last year.

''Now I want to eliminate nuclear power plants as soon as possible,'' he wrote in the book, ''Even if I get a beating, I must say this.''

Japan, which is the size of California, has a population of 128 million and was ''not fit to hold the risk of nuclear power plants,'' he said.